Through following a link on one of your comments, I came across these two photos of Alan Gelfand doing his signature “ollie” in both 1979 and 2004. I’ve seen a few “Then and Now” photo comparisons before, but these shots one-up the usual because he’s riding the same model board in both shots. What’s he doing riding a 25+ year old Powell board? Who knows how much it’s worth on eBay? (We do. $559 – $2,933) I say, keep riding it! Gelfand was involved with a lawsuit against Disney and Sega over skateboard toys and games using the word “Ollie.” I wonder how that turned out. Check out Alan’s web site, ollieair.com. [Photos: Left – CR Stecyk. Right – Charles Lillo]

Wormhoudt has broken ground on a new monster park in San Jose California. Our man on the street, but not necessarily the street course, Larry Pescatore sent us a few shots of the construction. The renders are courtesy of Wormhoudt, or would be if I had asked. If you like the trend of adding distinctive landmark features to an individual park, you’ll be happy to learn there are at least two in this 45,000 square foot park located at Lake Cunningham. Find out what $4,761,800 buys in San Jose after the jump.

Over the years I’ve met and spoken with some interesting people that I otherwise wouldn’t have a chance to, were it not for Skate and Annoy. Sometimes I search them out, sometimes they find me. We’ve got a gallery of 70’s skateboard bubblegum trading card stickers, and what better excuse to bring it up than some correspondence with the Jesse Crumb, son of legendary 70’s underground art icon R. Crumb. Jesse runs the official R. Crumb web site, as well as being an artist in his own right. Here’s part of what he had to say:

MAN! I have been looking for those cards/decals for 30 years, at least. I grew up in Northern Cal., near Ukiah. There were a few of us into injuring ourselves. A piece of gravel could throw you 10 feet, as you know anyway. So at the local corner store these cards arrived, but in very short supply, and they were COVETED. One guy who got a pack was a really feral kid, parents were complete hippies. My folks were back to the landers, but some of them.. MAN..the kids were just..ON THEIR OWN at, you know 7 years old?? Jeezis.. ANYWAY..So..he climbs the rope at the gym. Potter Valley High school gym. We were Hippy schooled at that time, but years later when I would enter “Public School” that decal..”Sidewalk Warrior” was STILL up there, and I would gaze at it. 50 feet in the air..every time I was in that Gym. It finally disappeared in the 80’s, but it was up there a good 10 plus years, more maybe. It’s hazy. Whelp! thanks for the Posting..took along time to find those images..Thanks for the Mental Image Update..

So check out the trading card stickers and the R. Crumb site while you are at it.

Remember Andy Wissman? Well so far he has resisted our offer for a spotlight photo gallery, but he did let us know about the release of Soytruk issue one. I like the zine, it’s got good photography and a sense of humor. Reminds me of the the old Swank Zine days, although a little more coherent. And in color. And presented digitally. Speaking of the presentation, I’m not too crazy about the delivery. The pages are easy to navigate, but the default image size on Flickr hosting (in this case, the pages) are too small. I also want to see the edges of the page. Give me a PDF file that I can download. It may be the lazy way of presenting a zine, but I guess you can’t beat the free hosting. At least he put it out. I’m still sitting on an print issue of Skate and Annoy that has barely seen the light of day. gee, maybe if I spent less time writing about other people’s work… I took a few liberties with his page layouts for the graphic above, so check out Soytruk.

Microsoft has some brand new interactive technology called Silverlight. The good news is that they are developing a Mac plugin, and since it’s Microsoft, all those TV station and other promotional web sites that have various semi-functioning Windows Media or AVI video clips up might finally have a cross platform solution. Heck, I can’t watch half the embedded WMV files on my Windows machine. Of course a popular technology solution to these problems already exists, and it’s called Flash. So how do you generate buzz for a competitor? With trendy skateboarding visuals. Ahh, but what sinister motivation lies behind the innocent act of skateboarding? Find out the answer to that question as well as where you might be able to win a Microsoft Silverlight skateboard after the jump.

Check out the new park piece here in the Columbia River Gorge, the little skatepark that could now has a very odd new part to skate/sit, at first I was like “Yuck” but then you skate it and your all “Wow”- its like freedom in a cup (coffee commercial reference for the slow folks).

Anyone else have a unique, skate feature to share?

So Josh has been skating since 2000, and has had Skatelife up for almost 3 weeks now. I started skating plastic toys in (Er… cough, cough) 1976 or so. Skate and Annoy has been online since 1996, and first printed in 1985… so yeah, that’s seems right. Go check out Josh’s site. Leave him some comments (Be nice!) and help him get started. I will be doing my part by poaching his story (with credit!) about an unrelated project called The Skate Life, in the very near future.

Apparently we’re in a position to help other people out nowadays. That’s right, you can stop laughing, wipe the smirk off your face and stuff it! We had over 80 thousand page views last month. Not requests for individual files or other inflated BS, this is Interweb™! magic folks! Now that we’re done breaking our arm to pat ourselves on the back, there’s a new online skate, art, lifestyle publication called Mumble Magazine. In their own words:

In plain english: we publish articles that have to do with influential artists, photographers, skateboarders, places, books, shit you can buy, music and whatever as well as some totally random shit that somehow fits into the picture. Headed up by the former editor of Crailtap.com, we’re dedicated to bringing real content back to the internet following the stranglehold that blogs have taken on it. We publish at least two new features every week.

Former editor? Sounds like when I interviewed for a job and said I was laid off from my previous job. I checked it out, It’s got some good stuff there like this feature on J. Grant Brittain and this one on 25 Years of Transworld, plus a lot more for people with a more well-rounded life, kind of like the seemingly defunct Bail Magazine, actually. If Bail isn’t dead, then they are the only skate magazine with a more irregular print schedule than Juice. Ass long as I’m taking the piss, Mumble’s definition of “actual features” is a little lax. Some early features are nothing more than thinly disguised but nicely presented product highlights, such as a bunch of pictures of Nike SB shoes and some free MP3’s. By that definition, we here at Skate and Annoy sometimes publish four or five features a day, even if we use a blog engine to do it. Ok, I’m done busting balls now. It’s actually something I’ve been struggling with here at Skate and Annoy. Our official “Features” posting has dropped dramatically, but a high percentage of our posts are very, very meaty. I’d even say dripping with content. Sure. Otherwise you’re just another monkey recycling links. Check out this skateboarding bulldog. LOL! But seriously folks, have a peek at Mumble Magazine. You’ll recognize some names over there.

(Note: Mumble links removed, original site is gone and appears to be malware now.)